SBJ Unpacks: The Road Ahead -- Job Market Faces Lasting Effects

There is a theory among some baseball insiders that MLB is squandering public goodwill by bickering over money during a pandemic, but seeing someone outside the sports industry adopt that same position drove the notion home for me.

CNN anchor Jim Sciutto quote-tweeted a report from ESPN’s Jeff Passan over the deadlock with this message over the weekend: “Dear baseball, We are a baseball-loving family but you’ve had cheating problems, ongoing PED questions & now a money fight in the midst of a crippling pandemic. I already had trouble explaining the first 2 to my kids. The latest makes it all close to impossible. Please find a way.”

As SBJ’s Eric Prisbell reports tonight, it’s still quite possible that MLB will end up with at least a 50-game season. But as the sport’s players and leaders continue to try to hash out an agreeable plan, let's hope they can do so before fan sentiment turns overwhelmingly negative.

TURNKEY FOUNDER: JOB MARKET "WILL CHANGE FOREVER"

• While the job market remains frozen across much of sports, there are some positions that simply can’t be left vacant -- even if it means hiring candidates you’ve never met in person; at least not as “in-person” was defined only a few months ago.
  
  

• SBJ’s Bill King discusses the sports job market, the hiring process, and the ways in which both may be forever changed with Turnkey Search Chair & Founder Len Perna on the latest episode of the SBJ Unpacks: The Road Ahead podcast.
  
  

• “I actually do think it will change forever,” Perna said. “The discovery is actually something that we’ve had the technology to do for some time. But it was reflexive for these interviews to always take place in person -- certainly the second and third round interviews."
  
  

• “Shortly, we’ll be announcing another hire -- a chief business officer of an NBA team. All of those interviews took place as video calls. So I don’t see any reason to go back to the old days where you have to hop on a plane every time you want to do a one-hour interview. I think a lot more of this can be done with new technology. It’s cheaper. It’s faster. It’s greener. And really you don’t lose a lot in the translation.”

MANDATED MINI-SEASON LOOKING MORE LIKELY FOR MLB

• With each passing day, the chances increase that MLB will stage a mini-season in the vicinity of 50-some games, writes SBJ's Eric Prisbell. As the league and union remain deadlocked on economic issues, both sides may wind up unintentionally running out the clock in these negotiations. That would leave Commissioner Rob Manfred no alternative but to mandate a 50-game season with players receiving full prorated salaries.
  
  

• In the coming days, the union is expected to respond to MLB's new proposal, which calls for players to be paid 75% of prorated salaries if a postseason is played following a 76-game regular season. But it remains to be seen if that response will include a formal counter-proposal. It would be unexpected if the union budges at this point on its stance of players receiving full prorated salaries. So then the question becomes how many games will the union focus its response on. 
  
  
• Owners are offering players a maximum of $1.43 billion in salaries in their new proposal. If that amount was used in a full prorated salary structure, it would translate into a 57-game regular season. Perhaps 57 games would be a middle ground compromise to avoid the scenario of Manfred mandating the season's length. 
  
  
• Shapiro Negotiations Institute CEO Andres Lares, who has advised pro sports teams for more than a decade on player contracts, trades and sponsorships, told SBJ that a mandate is "likely not what Manfred wants to do, but instead a flexing of his and the league’s muscles based on the March agreement."
  
  
• Lares: "Many feel that the result will be determined by who has more leverage, referring to their legal probability of success. However, based on our experience one should not underestimate the impact of other factors, such as public opinion, internal pressure and the ability for each side to stay unified. The more public this situation gets, the more unpredictable it will become."

NASCAR TO ALLOW SOME FANS AT HOMESTEAD/TALLADEGA EVENTS

• Homestead-Miami Speedway, site of this weekend’s NASCAR races, will invite up to 1,000 guests of the military, while Talladega Superspeedway will allow up to 5,000 fans for its event weekend later this month, reports SBJ's Adam Stern. All fans will have to be screened before entering, wear a mask, keep six feet between one another and will not have access to the infield.
  
  
• The military will help pick those who attend the Homestead race, while the 5,000 who attend the Talladega race will be chosen on a first-come, first-serve basis for those who already had a ticket to the track’s spring race. NASCAR Exec VP and Chief Operations & Sales Officer Daryl Wolfe: “We have tremendous respect and appreciation for the responsibility that comes with integrating guests back into our events. We believe implementing this methodical process is an important step forward for the sport and the future of live sporting events."

HAWKS GM: NBA 2020-21 SEASON COULD BE CONDENSED

• Hawks GM Travis Schlenk on a conference call with reporters this afternoon said that the NBA has told the league's general managers that the 2020-21  schedule "could be condensed in order to allow the league to remain as close as possible to its current schedule format."
  
  
• Schlenk: "There's a lot of different reasons for that -- the college season, the draft and how all of that plays out. So that's why they've laid out a timeline where it would be a very quick turnaround from the NBA Finals to the start of the season."
  
  
• ESPN's Tim Bontemps notes the potential Dec. 1 start date is "less than two months after the potential final day of the NBA Finals -- Oct. 12 -- making for an extraordinarily short offseason." Starting that quickly, however, "would at least give the NBA the possibility of finishing its regular season and playoffs before the Olympics in Tokyo." 

PGA TOUR "PREPARED TO EVOLVE" UPON RETURN

• The PGA Tour officially returns this week in Ft. Worth, a culmination of over three months of detailed planning by tour Senior VP and Chief of Operations Tyler Dennis and his team. Dennis, appearing on the “Golf Digest Podcast,” stressed that the Tour is “prepared to evolve” as it navigates its return at several courses across the country in the coming weeks. Dennis: “We know we’re going to learn things each week, and we’re going to apply those to the next week and really iterate in real time. … I’m excited. I’ll be happy to see that first tee shot hit on Thursday.”
  
  

• The Tour will not allow spectators for the first few events back, with fans tentatively returning in mid-July at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio. Dennis: “We want to get the fans back. We want to have spectators on site. … But we’ve just kept front and center this notion that we’re not going to do anything if we can’t do it in a healthy and safe manner. We’re trying to look at how each of our tournament markets are progressing and the thinking that governors and mayors and whatnot have. … We’re going to get there, just like everything else in the country, and we’re going to do it in a thoughtful way.”
  
  
• Meanwhile, an anonymous caddie took ESPN's Michael Collins through his concerns with the Tour's return to play: "I'm not nervous about traveling per se, in the sense that I may get sick. Clearly I don't wanna to get sick. But I'm nervous about contracting the virus and being told, hey, you're out again for another two or three weeks. I mean, I've had, like all of us, three months of zero income. And I don't want to extend that another few weeks."

ABU DHABI'S YAS ISLAND SET TO HOUSE UFC FACILITY

• UFC President Dana White revealed that his "mysterious Fight Island is located on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi."The emirate will "help the company promote some of its international athletes who have a hard time entering" the U.S. due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic. 

• The UFC will "host four events on Fight Island next month," starting with the UFC 251 PPV on July 11. UFC Fight Night cards will "take place on July 15, 18 and 25." The island facility "includes an arena, hotel, training facilities and dining establishments."
  
  
• White told ESPN, "If I can continue to do fights in the United States, I'm going to burn out all of my American talent. So now we've got Yas Island ready to go, it's set up. ... And yes, there is an octagon on the beach."

The island facility includes an arena, hotel, training facilities and dining establishments

CHECK OUT THIS WEEK'S SBJ

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SPEED READS

• Boxing returns tonight in the U.S. for the first time since the coronavirus struck the nation, with Shakur Stevenson and Felix Caraballo headlining Top Rank's five-fight card in Las Vegas. ESPN's Michael Rothstein reports the card took "months of planning." The study of "over 20 different protocols from sports leagues to movie studios to large corporations led to the creation of a 20-page, five-pronged plan, which Top Rank delivered to the Nevada State Athletic Commission" to receive the green light. Top Rank COO Brad Jacobs: "I've been in this business way longer than I want to admit. And this has been, by far, the most difficult process I've been through."
  
  
• Cardboard cutout fans "are set to be a significant feature" of the EPL when the league returns behind closed doors later this month. Eight clubs are reportedly "in discussions" with organizations to supply them with replica supporters. Meanwhile, LaLiga -- which is returning Thursday -- "will use virtual images of stands" in TV broadcasts with added "fan audio" produced by the makers of the FIFA video game.
  
  
• Cardinals Chair & CEO Bill DeWitt today said baseball "isn’t very profitable" while discussing the economics of MLB's return-to-play talks with the MLBPA. DeWitt told St. Louis-based  KFNS-AM, “This could be a great opportunity for us to help bring the country back. On the other hand, we’ve had difficulty making an agreement with the union." He added that MLB players have “by far the best deal of any players in any sport." DeWitt: "The industry isn’t very profitable, to be quite honest, and I think they understand that.”
  
  

• The American Junior Golf Association hit the restart button today with the AJGA Invitational at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, a tournament for golfers ages 12-19. The new health and safety protocols in effect this week will take some getting used to, as the AJGA is not messing around, writes Michael Smith in tonight's SBJ College newsletter.
  
  

• The futures for both Trey Wingo and Wendi Nix at ESPN are "unclear," per Andrew Marchand of the N.Y. Post. Both Wingo and Nix' respective deals are up at a time when Disney and ESPN are "struggling as a result of the pandemic," making it a "difficult time for the company to make deals." Prior to the pandemic, plans to change up the ESPN Radio lineup and “NFL Live” were "in place," but executives in recent months "have been focused on trying to figure out what to put on the air and deal with the impact of the coronavirus."

SBJ UNPACKS -- THE ROAD AHEAD

• Check out the most recent editions of our "SBJ Unpacks" podcasts around COVID-19:
  
  
  • Turnkey Search Chairman & Founder Len Perna on the state of the sports job market.
  • Bucks President Peter Feigin joins Bill King to discuss the team’s path back to basketball, and through civil unrest.
  • Bill King and John Lombardo discuss the NBA’s restart plan in July.

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR SBJ GAME CHANGERS!

Online nominations for Game Changers are now open. We’ll be accepting nominations through midnight June 21. The Game Changers event will be Oct. 27-28, and a special section will run in SBJ in the Oct. 19 issue.

Something related to coronavirus and sports business catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it.